Nellis Air Station was our first stop, the closest site to Yucca Mountain with the facilities to handle our transport plane and the little half-squadron of robotic deathbirds that had followed us.

Now we were cruising over the Las Vegas suburbs, stuffed …

The Core Systems Alliance was not a great military power.

It was the only power, which is not quite the same thing. We did not have seasoned veterans, brilliant generals, or ambitious young officers. That had all been outsourced to private security com…

An hour later, we were in the air, strapped into the cabin of a supersonic transport plane. The engine howl was eerily muted at these speeds, and we could almost talk normally.

"What are we doing, Lieutenant?" Boris asked quietly, eying the pair of mar…

What followed was not so much a mission briefing but a series of pronouncements from the little computer.

"You have both been granted code word access to ELECTRIC RAVEN, and may not discuss information under this classification with anyone except…" the P…

"Is it correct that those present are only: Lieutenant Georgia Whitmore and Chief Petty Officer Boris Nenashev?"

I tapped "yes" on the onscreen prompt.

A synthetic voice began reading along as further text appeared.

"Voice interface authorized. Lt. Whi…

Back at my desk, things only got more bizarre.

"I've retrieved the plan files, sir."

"Good. Open them, and follow instructions. Thank you for your service, Lieutenant."

The SecDef hung up. Not even annoyed at the wait?

I stared down at the file case…

Inside the safe was a rack of thin metallic briefcases, bearing coded nameplates.

Badger, Dragon, Efreet… Raven.

I tugged on the case, but it wouldn't come free. Then I noticed the warning placard inside the door of the safe.

"NOTICE: Secure Files wi…

The Office of Strategic Assets was responsible for a number of things: planetary deuterium stockpiles, mothballed military bases, and reserve nuclear weapons.

We'd all been shocked three years ago when the order came down to unseal one of the black sites…

I tapped the mute key on my terminal.

"Boris! Where's the QS-19 document safe?"

The sleepy NCO looked up from his morning tea. All our shifts had been rearranged by the crisis.

"Nineteen? Sub-basement. In the vault."

"Seriously? Okay…" I unmuted the m…

We weren't ready for the aliens, but should have been.

They first got our attention with a series of six X-ray bursts out beyond the orbit of Neptune, one for each of their massive ships. Each was so bright, it took hours to tell that this wasn't a comet…

I had cut through Liddell Park on my way to my girlfriend's flat. It wasn't the first time I'd tried to save time this way. Above the rounded tops of the trees, the summer sky was filled with wispy clouds like a cotton ball being stretched thin across the…

"Swift..easy," <kapow> "Dead."

The spotter located the next target and started, "Swift..easy," <kapow> "dead!"

A crisp cadet followed by an older officer called the sniper and spotter to attention," Platoon Guide Chapman and Assistant P. G. Gutierrez?"

Th…

The legion is probably on its way here so we should be getting a move on or a broken space ship will be the least of our problems.

The aliens had made their purpose clear upon first contact and they were not happy with our showing up unannounced despite …

He hoped for a message. Something that would reassure him that they were still there. That things were OK. That plans were still in motion.

He got nothing.

Day after day he hoped the same hope and was met with silence. Well, not silence, but they were n…

"Do you two maggots have something to say to the whole toon?" Drill Seargent Norris yelled up into the faces of the new recruits.

"No Drill Seargent!" they barked back.

"Get on your faces and push, and I want to hear some conversation, or everybody will p…

We used to believe things when I was a kid; I'm only 17, but that's plenty old enough now. We used to believe we would live forever, and things would would work themselves out. We used to believe this was our planet.

The year is 2040, and now we know…

They come for you at night, you know that?

They come and they take you. They bring you to their ship or their lab. They put things inside you. Little machines. Little machines so that they can talk to you. Tell you things. Tell you that they are in contr…

The library is a church turned community center, with opaque glass, barred windows and a draft. Ms. Riley works with dial-up and a folding chair.

They find metal bed frames and blankets and build a ‘Bat Cave’ in the basement. Fuse practices their Englis…

It's swirling around them, this confusing mass of tendrils, burning asphalt anger, hot and painful to touch. Fuse has never been safe. They've always been sharp and lean, a knife trying to cut through Spire's water, but now they're hot, steam against Spir…